Night Shots Around Colorado Springs

Well I know its been a little while since I have posted anything on here, but its not for a lack of having stuff to post. Since my last post, I've had another shoot with Linda and Rebecca (those should be up later on today as well), a shoot with a great model up in Fort Collins (hopefully have those up in a day or two), some landscapes from a secret location (really, can't say where it is, but hopefully will have them up soon), and now finally had the chance to go out and do some night shots around Colorado Springs. I have been wanting to go do some night shots for a while, but have never had the chance. Finally last night I decided to go to Palmer Park and get some sunset shots, and then go wander around town and take advantage of the full moon. Unforutnately, I got to Palmer Park a little late (sun was a little lower then I would have liked) not to mention the mountains were almost completely covered with clouds so you couldn't see anything hardly. Oh well, we will try that again soon.

So by the time I gave up hope, it was night. Was going to head down town and get some shots, but didn't have anything in particular in mind. The first place I came up to was the Colorado College campus. The campus is pretty cool. It has several of its orignal buildings like the church and administration building, mixed in with a bunch of modern buildings. I was surprised to see the front door to the church open (it was like 10 pm) and empty. I almost went inside to shoot some, but decided against it.





After I got done on campus, I went downtown. I was hoping to do some stuff around the clubs (it was a Saturday night on a 4 day weekend and the military just got paid), but I didn't really see anything that caught my eye. I kept driving and ended up at the pioneer museum where I had done my shoot with Jeannie. It actually looked pretty cool at night.



When I walked around to the back and looked at the art work we had used, it was pretty cool. It took me a few tries to get the exposure right, but I really think the shot came out great.



I was getting ready to leave, and then thought about something I had wanted to try when I was shooting with Jeannie. I wanted to try and get some light beams coming out from behind the piece out towards the camera. Unfortunately that day it was broad daylight, but now it wasn't. Up until now, i have never really tried any kind of effects with my lights, but figured this was a good chance. I never managed to get the look I was going after (despite about 10 attempts), but I think that this is a pretty nice look reguardless.



You can see the rest of my shots from this night on my "Night Shots" folder on Flickr.

Fashion Shoot with Jeannie

I'd like to introduce to you all Jeannie. Jeannie answered a casting call that I had placed on Model Mayhem a couple of weeks ago. She is a local spokes model who was looking to add more shots to her portfolio. We met on a day when the weather was questionable at best. We had had scattered showers the last few days and as I was driving downtown to meet here, there was nothing but black clouds coming over the mountain. I almost called to reschedule but I figured we would give it a shot. Thankfully, the weather held long enough for us to shoot (it literally started to finally rain as I was walking to my car to head home). The clouds actually did a great job of softening up the light some too.

Most of the shots here took place at and around the Pioneer Museum downtown. I saw the giant paperclip (yes that's a Giant Paper Clip) and wanted to use it. After we shot there, we wondered around and stumbled on a few other really cool areas. Once we shot there we were looking for somewhere else to shoot at. Before we met, I found an alley way that looked kind of cool. When we finally walked down it we saw this awesome garage door that made an amazing background.

One other great part of about this trip, was it was the first time that I had tried using my flash (only a little SB-600 for right now) with a model. We used it primarily in the alley way, but I like the way it turned out. Thanks Jeannie for dealing with me while I was constantly messing with it and changing settings trying to get it to work the way I wanted it to. Since I am still to cheap to go out and buy a wireless trigger for it, we were using my heavily modified (I need to post an article on this sometime) off camera synch cable (connected with a piece of CAT5 cable) to get the flash in position). All and all, we both had a great time shooting. I think the pictures came out very good and I can't wait to work with her again.

Please make sure you check out the entire session on my Flick page.